French village revives the franc

July 22, 2008|By Steven Erlanger, New York Times News Service

COLLOBRIERES, France — Mayor Christine Amrane says it is mostly about profit, not just protest and nostalgia. This village deep in Provence has decided to accept the French franc in everyday commerce, along with the euro, and the colorful old bills adorned with French heroes and writers have people thinking.

Not too radically, of course. Not enough to upset things in this picturesque place of 1,600 people, with its perfect tiled village square, commanded by a town hall and a cafe, and its table of old men playing cards and drinking pastis, shaded by huge plane trees from the hot southern sun.

"We lost something with the franc," said Amrane, in office since 2001. "We lost an identity. We moved very quickly into Europe, maybe too quickly."

Along with mostly visa-free travel, the introduction of the euro in 2002 was heralded as a great step in building a united Europe. But printed with abstract images, bridges and buildings, and with no portraits of anyone, living or dead, euro bills are as faceless as the Eurocrats who run the new Europe may seem.

Euro blamed for inflation

While Europeans value the ease of travel the euro has encouraged, they also think the new currency caused inflation by allowing merchants to round up costs. With the creation of a European Central Bank, countries can no longer adjust their interest rates and exchange rates to suit their economic circumstances.

Nathalie Lepeltier, 39, a baker who came up with the idea of accepting the franc here as a way of getting people to spend more, said, "The euro has made life more expensive; prices are much higher." Whether the euro is at fault or not, people certainly believe it is. "People have lost the concept of the value of money with the euro," Lepeltier said.

"People remember the price in francs, and they're shocked now, when they use francs, at how much more everything costs," she said.

Political protest is less on the minds of the people here than the chestnut festival. Paris is 535 miles away, and Brussels even farther. But the European Union is a source of confusion and annoyance. The French were not allowed to vote in a referendum on the complicated Lisbon Treaty to reorganize the workings of the enlarged union of 27 nations. France, like most countries, thought it safer to ratify the treaty in Parliament.

'Democratic deficit'

But the Irish voted, and voted no. There is a lot of agreement with them here. France is thought to be the beating heart of the European vision, but when the French voted on an earlier version of the treaty, in 2005, they voted no -- and polls say the French would reject it again in its current form.

The Irish vote brought criticism and hand-wringing about the "democratic deficit" of bureaucratic European institutions with few connections to voters. But the Irish are not alone in having their doubts about how to make Europe function efficiently and democratically.

The Irish "no" has also been a major blow to the government of France, which took over the six-month presidency of the European Union on July 1. President Nicolas Sarkozy has been full of ideas about how to push Europe along, as another way to restore some of his lost credibility here. But the Irish rejection means that France will spend much of its time trying to manage Europe's internal crisis.

"I'm a convinced European, but I have some problems with it," Amrane said. "There are no real bearings -- no real identity as Europeans. We need more time."